VII
Occasionally, perhaps once or twice a week, the Grand Duchess preferred to be alone, and on these evenings I used to resign myself to work.
My study of the Königsmark had been virtually abandoned. I no longer found much pleasure in disturbing that ancient dust now that fate had summoned me to witness another drama, the actors in which lived and moved around me, and spoke to me every day.
There had been a great storm on a certain July evening which Aurora’s pleasure doomed me to spend alone. Through the window, open to the lowering night sky, I heard the trees dripping. I was working in an extremely half-hearted manner, my mind straying from the tragedy of the Herrenhausen to the lands whither the Tumene princess’s story had wafted me. Indeed, it was a piece of pure luck that thrust before my eyes the supremely important document of which I must now speak.
I told you some time back, with details which must have seemed tedious, of the dossier compiled by the Queen of Prussia with a view to the rehabilitation of her mother Sophie-Dorothea. That evening, after analysing two or three documents of secondary importance, I came to another, marked S.2—No. 87.
It consisted of two large pages covered with writing in German characters, crowded closely together. My listlessness vanished after the first few lines. My mind sprang to attention, for I realized that I had at last got hold of something decisive.
This document contained the confession of a certain Bauer, who had died a game-keeper in the service of the Grand Duke of Rudolstadt, and who, twenty years earlier, had been employed at the Herrenhausen. In his last moments this man, a Catholic, had asked a priest to confess him. The latter, who had heard of the Queen of Prussia’s investigation, made his absolution subject to a formal statement of the events in which Bauer had taken part. It was that very confession, bearing the signatures of the dying man, the confessor and two witnesses, that I was engaged in examining.
You will understand that, with that proof of authenticity before me, it chained my attention.
Bauer had been one of the ten men who assisted Countess von Platen to assassinate Count Königsmark on the tragic night of July 1st, 1694.
His confession related how Countess von Platen prepared punch for her men while they were waiting for the Count to come out of the Princess’s apartments.
He denies being among those who actually attacked him with their swords and daggers, but admits that he held him down while Countess von Platen, with her foot on his head, tried to extort a confession from him that he had been Sophie-Dorothea’s lover.
I was familiar with most of these details. They can also be found in Blaze de Bury’s book. But the statements following definitely settled the famous controversy as to what happened to the Count’s corpse.
When Count Königsmark was quite dead, said Bauer, Countess von Platen ordered us to carry him to the great fireplace at the back of which is a bronze plaque six feet wide. Countess von Platen touched a spring. The plaque divided in two, revealing a little chamber. I just caught a glimpse, for I was very much perturbed in mind, of a whitish heap which looked like lime. We laid the corpse down there. Countess von Platen then sent us away, after telling us to wash off the blood which had stained the clothes of some of the men. She remained in the Baron’s Hall with her attendant, a certain Festmann....
You see now that I had my reasons when I told you, casually, that Königsmark’s corpse is concealed behind the fire-back in the Knight’s Hall of the Herrenhausen. Moreover, Bauer’s document had, in my eyes, a further importance beyond settling the spot once and for all. To me it was also a proof of the complicity either of Ernest-Augustus or his son. Remember that Countess von Platen had worked a secret spring, and also bear in mind that German princes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were exceedingly jealous of their secret lock-systems. If that secret was communicated to Madame von Platen it was only for some vital purpose.
Before starting work I had made some coffee and had three cups, one after the other. This coffee began to have its effect, by which I mean that, excited by my first discovery, my mind was absolutely clear at that moment. Please note this detail as it has its importance.
To discover something is nothing. To establish the truth of your discovery is everything. Now how was I to go to Hanover, obtain permission to visit the Herrenhausen and be alone in the Knight’s Hall for the necessary time. You can imagine I had no intention of putting some palace curator on the track I had just found.
It was then that an idea occurred to me which I will disclose to you as a proof of the value of coffee in deductive reasoning. You will remember that when I was studying the question of the employment of French artists by German princes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries I discovered that the locksmith’s work had been given by the Elector Ernest-Augustus of Hanover to a Catalan named Giroud who had also worked for the Grand Duke of Lautenburg. This Giroud had even had difficulties with Ernest-Augustus over his accounts. At that time I had only cast a cursory glance at the file dealing with the case. It was necessary for me to examine it more carefully. Perhaps I should be able to find something about the system of secret springs installed by Giroud at the Herrenhausen. I decided to clear the matter up then and there.
It was just after midnight I put an electric torch in my pocket and quietly left my room. At that moment I thought I heard a faint noise in the deserted corridor.
“Come,” I thought, “I can’t let myself be scared like this by old papers!”
When I got to the library I was disagreeably surprised to find the lights on. Professor Cyrus Beck was hard at work covering a black board with his formulæ and only stopping to consult five or six treatises open in front of him.
There was, of course, nothing unusual about my appearance there. I had often gone down late at night to the library to clear up some point in my next day’s lesson. All the same he looked at me with that suspicious air of the savant who always thinks you’re going to rob him of something.
Two or three pleasant words quickly reassured him. He condescended to confide to me that he was at a decisive moment in his experiments and that the next day, without doubt, perhaps that very night.... Through the open door came the noise of his furnaces, roaring like chimneys on fire.
I thought it unwise to tell him that I, too, had reached the same stage as himself in another affair. Besides, almost at once he put away his books, folded up his notes, rubbed out his formulæ, wished me good-night and went.
I was eager for his departure as I had already found what I wanted.
With a sureness of method which astonished me I had put my hand straight off on the vital document, a bill of Giroud’s, dated 1682, and addressed to Ernest-Augustus.
It was a long bill, but I found the following item at once:
For the chimney-place of the Baron’s Hall, six springs, in my name, at one hundred and fifty livres the spring.
—Total 900 livres.
I did not need to have a very profound knowledge of secret springs and locks to know what it meant. The system is still used in safes, Fichet’s and others. It meant that on the fire-back of the chimney-place in the Baron’s Hall of the Herrenhausen there were six lettered locks. You made the spring act by taking for each lock in turn one of the six letters forming the name of the inventor, Giroud.
When you remember that this Giroud was the master-locksmith of the Grand Duke of Lautenburg you won’t have much difficulty in realizing that my first thought was to use the fire-back in the armoury of the castle of Lautenburg as a test of the accuracy of my reasoning with regard to the fireplace of the Baron’s Hall in the Castle of Hanover. So you may imagine how impatiently I watched Cyrus Beck’s departure.
When at last he had gone I waited a quarter of an hour. Then I turned out the lights, opened the right-hand door of the library and banged it to as if I had gone back to my room. Then, taking great care not to fall over anything and picking my way among the desks and show-cases I returned and cautiously opened the door on the left hand side which led into the armoury.
Great pools of moonlight, shaped like the tall lancet windows, flecked the dark floor. I went straight to the chimney-place. I started at touching the heavy iron fire-back. It was only when my fingers found a kind of knob high up on the left that I switched on my electric torch.
I had no difficulty in dealing with the knob. It pivoted on a hinge, revealing a kind of dial. The whole thing was not unlike one of our gas-metres.
I started back in dismay. I was expecting letters, but this dial had numbers. It was divided into twenty-five sections.
Turning off the lamp I sat down on a heavy oak stool close by.
I didn’t have to think long. 25! What a fool I was!
I pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper, turned on the lamp again and, kneeling at the stool, I had soon written out the twenty-five letters of the alphabet and underneath a row of figures to correspond. Then I wrote Giroud’s name and obtained the following combination: 7, 9, 18, 15, 21, 4.
791815214. It will be a long time before I forget that number.
I examined the whole face of the metal rectangle with my lamp. A terrible disappointment was in store for me. Instead of the six knobs that I had expected I could only find two.
When a single factor throws out the kind of calculations I had just made it can only mean that one’s theory is radically false. I might have known. That would have been much too simple....
Solely to prove myself wrong, I tried the first knob and turning the pointer on the dial I set it on the figure 7—g.
I crossed to the other side and repeated the operation on the other knob, putting the pointer on the figure 9—i.
All at once I could hear my heart beat. A black vertical line appeared in the centre of the plaque. That line got wider and wider. The two panels thus formed slid back to each side, leaving a gap some two feet six inches wide.
I was on the right track. The mystery of the Herrenhausen was to be solved at last!
I had recovered control of myself, perfect control. I remember saying: “What a delightful way of studying history! I wonder what Monsieur Seignobos would think of it?”
I passed through the opening, taking with me the stool which had been my table. On the inside the fire-back had two handles, one on each side. Very gently, but quite easily, I drew the panels together again, not absolutely touching, however, for fear of releasing some fatal spring.
Do you remember the 24th August, my friend, in the village of Beaumont, in Belgium, when you and I went down into a cellar where the inhabitants said five Uhlans were hiding? You called me a rash fool and came behind, but I couldn’t help smiling at the thought that those five fugitives were nothing compared with the darkness in which I was wrapped that night.
When I had pulled the two panels to behind me I found myself in a little chamber, six feet wide, and six feet high. On each side of me were blank walls, but at the back was another bronze plaque with, as I expected, two more knobs to right and left.
I put the hand of the first dial on the figure 18. The pointer of the second had just reached 15 when the noise of tearing wood, absolutely terrifying in that dead silence, froze me from head to foot. The lower half of the immense plaque, opening horizontally about three feet from the ground, had swung forward and smashed to matchwood the heavy stool I had placed against it as I came in.
If I hadn’t jumped back so smartly my feet would infallibly have been crushed.
“Excellent!” I murmured. “So their secrets are man-traps, too!”
I bent down and got into the second chamber, which was of exactly the same dimensions as the first. You can imagine that this time I took all precautions, standing carefully to the left as I put the pointer of the fifth dial on 21 and to the right as I turned that of the sixth to 4. I might have saved myself the trouble. The plaque parted in two vertically, like the first one, and the panels rolled aside on invisible hinges.
Then I passed into the third and last chamber.
It was of the same height, but twice as long and wide. The small arc of my electric torch gave a good light, but covered but a small area.
At first I could only see what looked like white splashes on the floor.
But suddenly, my friend, my very marrow froze within me. I was frightened, horribly frightened, for in the corner to my left a curious little white heap had just come into view. Drawn by some over-mastering instinct I approached it, and even as I approached I wanted to bolt, and between my chattering teeth I muttered: “It’s a hallucination. I’m dreaming. I know I’m dreaming. I’m not at Hanover. This is Lautenburg. The palace. There’s Doctor Cyrus Beck just round the corner working. There’s the night-watchman. There’s Ludwig, my servant. There’s Major von Kessel, honest, kind Kessel...”
The heap of quicklime was now at my feet. I fell, rather than knelt, before it.
Fantastic fragments were sticking out of it, shapeless, gruesome white fragments. Dithering as I was, how did I ever have the courage to pick one up, run my fingers over it, examine it....
Yet that is exactly what I did. I had that bone, a right tibia, in my hands, feeling it, examining it.
And then I uttered a loud cry, for in the middle of that bone my finger came into contact with the mark of an old fracture.
How I managed to give Duke Joachim his history lesson next morning is a thing I’ve never ceased to wonder at. I kept my eyes off the mirror, terrified lest I should see a ghastly face reflected in it.
At eleven o’clock I was in the Archduchess’s small boudoir.
The old Russian waiting-woman went off to tell Melusine, who came at once. I could see from the half-humorous surprise in her manner that my call, at that hour, was considered extremely strange.
“You want to see the Grand Duchess, my friend! You are very bold. Well, as it’s you... I’m sure you wouldn’t have come without some very good...”
As she spoke she drew aside the curtains. The sun shone full on my face. She started at my appearance, and with difficulty suppressed an exclamation.
“I’ll go and fetch her,” she said simply.
I seemed to have been walking in my sleep, pushed on by the force of the night’s events. Left to myself my decision seemed utterly crazy. Why, in a minute’s time I should certainly be taken for the madman I had brought myself to believe I was. How would Aurora take the story of my extraordinary adventure? “Save her from the fits of depression and that kind of spiritual disorder which are so fatal to her physical health.” The words came back to me. It was the request made to me by the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus. This was an odd way of carrying out his wishes. I wanted to bolt.
But the Grand Duchess was already there. She was in such high spirits that morning that I thought I should never have the strength of mind to break my news to her.
“Well, my friend,” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Have you changed your time-table? Have you decided to give me your mornings in future?”
My tell-tale face produced the same effect on her as on Melusine.
She took my arm and made me sit down on a sofa beside her.
“You nearly fell as you sat down,” she said gravely. “Melusine, bring me the blue casket.”
It was a diminutive box in blue enamel. What heathen stimulant could it contain? As soon as I had inhaled it at Aurora’s bidding, I started as if I’d had an electric shock.
“There!” she said, “you’re better already.” And added:
“Begin as soon as you feel you can. We’re listening.”
I told her everything you already know, from my first researches into the Königsmark drama to the final climax, my visit to the secret chamber in the armoury and my sinister discovery.
From beginning to end she listened, calm and self-possessed, only occasionally exchanging with Melusine a glance which revealed astonishment rather than emotion.
When I had finished she did not speak for a moment, and then said quietly:
“You have told us an extraordinary exciting story, but you mustn’t be surprised to hear that it does not arouse any other emotion in me. There’s one thing I admit, which comes as rather a shock: the fact that at Lautenburg you have found a skeleton in the very same place where there must be one in the palace of Hanover. But what does it prove, granting that natural death is out of the question, but that the old Dukes of Lautenburg had no greater respect for human life than their Hanoverian neighbours? I have always thought so, and it’s no great surprise.”
“But it isn’t the presence of the skeleton which has been such a shock, madame,” I answered.
“What is it, then?” she said, in that slightly scornful tone she immediately assumed when she thought you were trying to mystify her.
“It is,” I said simply, but picking my words carefully, “that I had in my hands the right tibia of the corpse which was concealed there, and that in the middle of that tibia, on its outer surface, was the join of an old fracture.”
Aurora was standing now. She was pressing her hands to her temples. She had turned deadly pale. Her staring eyes grew bigger and bigger.
“You’re mad! You’re mad!” she screamed. “Melusine, tell him he’s mad!”
Fräulein von Graffenfried rushed to the Grand Duchess, who had fallen back, rigid, on the sofa. Her eyelids were half closed. I read inexpressible terror in the look she gave me.
“Mad! Mad!” she screamed again. “He’s at Sangha. I have his letters. Sangha!”
“At Sangha! At Sangha!” the heartrending voice rang out again.
“I’ve only done what I thought was my duty,” I murmured to Melusine, helping her to get her mistress to inhale the little blue casket.
The kind creature gave me a look charged with meaning, as much as to say: “I know it, you’ve no need to apologize.”
“Don’t be alarmed,” she said in an undertone. “Her brain fever has left her extremely sensitive. And you must admit there’s good reason on this occasion. Look, she’s coming round.”
Aurora was opening her startled eyes. She saw us two bending over her and memory came back. There must have been an expression of terrible concern in our faces, for she smiled and held out a hand which I covered with kisses.
“Forgive me, children, for giving you such a fright. Good Melusine, always at her post when she’s wanted! And you, dear friend, my thanks.”
“You are not angry with me?” I pleaded.
She smiled and shook her head, giving me for answer the Russian saying:
“Do the rooks hate the sun for showing up the sportsman’s gun?”
She added:
“Melusine, go and tell them that he’ll stay to lunch.”
To be present at Aurora’s table was a signal honour. Melusine alone had been thought worthy of it hitherto. It was not long before I learnt to my cost how great the honour was. Meanwhile I only saw in it further proof of the importance of my revelation.
One would have expected the meal to suffer from the effects of recent events. It did not suffer in the least, and though Aurora’s spirits seemed a little forced, she was gay throughout. She talked about other things the whole time. I admired her self-possession all the more, because my secret was enough to have destroyed it altogether. In that hour, big with the burden of coming events, I knew the joy of realizing how indispensable I had become to the haughty princess, who had seemed to ignore my very existence only five short months before.
When the coffee came Melusine rose.
“Where are you going?” the Grand Duchess inquired.
“To say that you won’t be going calling this afternoon,” she replied.
“Shan’t I?” said Aurora, smiling. “I’m not so overcome as all that. Just go and say that the car is to be ready at four instead of five.”
“Four?”
“Yes. I want a few hours’ rest before coming to fetch you at midnight,” she said, turning to me.
Melusine and I stared at her.
“Does that surprise you?” she continued. “Do you call what you have just told me important or not? Now this is what I think. One person can suffer from a delusion. It’s highly improbable that two will. At midnight, my friend, I shall knock at your door. Then you will have an opportunity of proving your knowledge of secret springs. You understand, now? Now, Melusine, go and order the car for four o’clock. I’ve twice postponed my call on the good Burgomaster’s wife, and I mustn’t break my word a third time.”
There was so much authority in this order that Melusine went, casting a long, imploring glance in my direction.
“Poor little girl,” said the Grand Duchess. “That look gives me into your care. Midnight, you understand, without fail.”
“Madame,” I said firmly, “I’ll do anything your Highness wishes. I understand your resolution. Indeed, I can only approve it. May I just make two remarks? First, that it would be much better for me to come and fetch you rather than that you should run the risk of meeting some one in the corridors of the castle. In the second place, you should know that the watch make their rounds at midnight. They may be a little early tonight, and it is most advisable to avoid any chance of being disturbed in so delicate an enterprise as ours.”
“Very well,” she said. “What then?”
“With your permission I’ll be here at half-past ten. An hour will give us plenty of time. Fräulein von Graffenfried can stay in your apartments and receive any callers.”
She smiled:
“If by that you mean Hagen, jealous young man, you may as well know that he’s due at his mess tonight, for one of those drinking-bouts for which any good German would gladly sacrifice the Loreley.”
“Hagen or another,” I said, with a shade of irritation in my voice. “We must provide for all emergencies.”
“You’re right, dear friend,” she said gravely. “Then I’ll expect you at half-past ten.”
When I went back to my room after dinner I really thought the time to go and fetch the Grand Duchess would never come.
At length ten o’clock struck, then quarter past. I went out quietly and peeped through the library door. Good. There was no light. If Cyrus Beck had unfortunately taken it into his head to work there that night we should have had to begin all over again.
Half-past struck, but it took me barely two minutes to cut across the garden. I wasn’t late.
Very quietly I opened the door leading into the park. A puff of fresh air braced me up.
As I was closing it again I started. A hand had just been placed on my shoulder. At that moment I heard a voice:
“Professor Vignerte, I’m delighted to meet you!”
It was Lieutenant von Hagen.
The night was pitch-black, and we could not see each other. But I thought I detected that the hand he had put on my shoulder was a little unsteady. In an instant I recovered all my self-control.
“I thought you were at your mess,” I said.
“I’m supposed to be,” he replied. “But we all change our minds sometimes. What about yourself? No doubt you intended to spend the evening working in your room. Yet here you are.”
“It’s so stifling tonight,” I said, “that I came into the garden for a breath of air.”
“In that case I don’t suppose you’ll mind having my company for your walk.”
This time I detected so much impertinent irony in his tone, that I saw it was a case of putting all my cards on the table.
“I’m very much flattered by your attentions, Herr Lieutenant, but I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t rather be alone.”
He giggled. “Quite alone?” he demanded.
A quarter to eleven had just struck. The sound made me furious. Was this imbecile to wreck all our plans?
“What do you mean?” I asked angrily.
I realized his idea was to make me lose my self-control.
“Herr Professor,” he said, “in Germany we hold one thing very sacred. Our word of honour. I like to think that it’s the same in France. I won’t trouble you any further if, here and now, you will give me your word of honour that you have no appointment this evening with the Grand Duchess Aurora.”
I started. How much did this man know of what had happened? Once more I restrained myself.
“Herr von Hagen, one of your novelists, Beyerlein, has written a very bad book, ‘The Retreat.’ You and I are about to repeat the most absurd scene in that book, with the difference that it does not concern the daughter of a quartermaster-sergeant, but your sovereign, the Grand Duchess of Lautenburg-Detmold. I’m surprised....”
“I know,” he said in a hoarse voice. “And that’s just why I intend...”
“What do you intend? Tell me. Let’s have it out!”
“To kill you, Herr Professor.”
“And why, if you please?”
“Because you love her and because...”
The red Hussar choked down a sob. His hand, on my arm, trembled violently.
“Because?”
“Because she loves you.”
I almost pitied him at that moment. But the Grand Duchess was waiting for me in her room.
“I’m at your service, sir,” I said. “Tomorrow, or any day you like.”
“Tomorrow,” he replied bitterly. “Do you think I’m going to give you a chance of seeing her? She’s waiting for you, I know. You haven’t given me your answer. I must have it now, sir. At once.”
This was too much. I wrenched my arm away and thrust him aside with great violence. He crashed into the wall.
He drew his sword.
I felt quite equal to snatching it from his hand and turning it against him then and there. But I ran the risk of being wounded, and, besides, there would be a commotion, a scene. That must at all costs be avoided.
“Herr von Hagen,” I said in low tones, “listen to me. I know you wouldn’t be talking like this or trying to pick a quarrel, if you didn’t love the Grand. Duchess yourself.”
“Sir,” he replied, furious, “I forbid you...”
“Just listen to me,” I said, and there was a ring of impatient authority in my voice which impressed him. “You love her, I repeat. I’m going now to appeal as much to your love as to your loyalty as a soldier. The Grand Duchess Aurora, that glorious woman, is in terrible danger tonight. You must understand that. Every minute, every second, that you make me lose increases that danger. On that I can give you my word of honour here and now.”
I saw that I had hit home.
“What do you mean, sir?” he murmured in alarm. “Danger?”
“Yes, Herr von Hagen. Go back to your rooms at once. Don’t go to bed. Perhaps Aurora of Lautenburg will need your help tonight.”
He hesitated, then resigned himself to his lot.
“Very well, sir. I accept. I’ll go back. But remember that if you’ve deceived me...”
“You need have no fear of that,” I replied. “You must understand that the little meeting you suggested just now must be postponed till tomorrow morning if you like. I’m just as anxious for it as yourself.”
“Until tomorrow, then,” he said, smiling. “What time?”
“Six o’clock. At the Meilleraie bridge. It’s a secluded spot and the Melna is handy.”
“What about weapons?”
“You can choose,” I said. “I leave it entirely to you.”
“By ourselves, of course,” we said in the same breath.
He stood to attention, gave me a military salute, and vanished in the darkness.
“At last!” I murmured, with a sigh of relief. Eleven o’clock was striking as I entered the Grand Duchess’s apartments.
She was alone in her boudoir, standing, rather pale.
As I entered, my expression must have told her that something unusual had happened, for she asked no questions as to why I was late.
“Anything serious?” she asked simply.
“Nothing, madame. But we must be quick. We’ve only just time.”
As we reached the door leading to the staircase the door of Melusine’s room opened and Fräulein von Graffenfried appeared.
“What!” she said. “So soon?”
“Yes,” said Aurora. “I forgot to tell you we decided to make it an hour earlier. Don’t be alarmed, dear. Stay here and don’t let any one in. We shall be back before midnight.”
She kissed her on the forehead.
Torn with apprehension, and her beautiful eyes full of tears, Melusine von Graffenfried had seized my hands.
“Swear to me no harm shall come to her,” she begged. “I commit her to your care.”
“Come, come,” said Aurora. “We’ve no time to lose. Turn out the light on the staircase.”
We went down into the darkness.
When we got to the landing, I felt the pressure of the Grand Duchess’s hand on my arm. She wasn’t trembling, I can assure you.
“Are you armed?” she said.
“No.”
“Child!” she murmured, and even as she spoke I could feel her hand slipping something into the pocket of my jacket.
“It’s a Browning, a good one. Don’t hesitate to use it if the occasion arises, against any one. I’ll set you the example myself.”
We were now at the bottom of the staircase. She was leading, and it was she who opened the door.
“Well?” I said.
She had stopped, blocking the doorway. A dull cry escaped her.
“Didn’t I tell you so! Oh, didn’t I tell you so! He’s a strong man, a very strong man!”
“What is it?” I asked in terror.
To our right a huge red glare lit up the night sky. Half the castle was on fire.
Against that background of flame the yews of the park stood out like black cones. The water in the Persephone fountain gleamed black and red.
“But who could have told him that we should come tonight?” said the Grand Duchess. “Only three of us knew: I, you and... she.”
For a few seconds we gazed at the tragic scene. Then noises began to be heard in the palace, startled from its first sleep.
“Come,” said Aurora, “let’s go and see.”
As we approached we ran into Hagen. He was flying down the steps of the right wing like a maniac.
“You! You!” he almost screamed with joy on recognizing the Grand Duchess. “I was terrified! I am so thankful.”
He kissed her hands frantically.
“Forgive me, forgive me!” he stammered, turning to me.
“Stay here with her,” I said, and, running off, I made for the banqueting-hall at top speed.
“Where’s he going?” cried Aurora. “Stop him!”
But I was already too far. Crossing the banqueting-hall, I got into the right wing of the castle. It was the left which was on fire, with the library, and, of course, the armoury.
What was I thinking of? I had no very clear idea myself. Some force, with which argument was useless, was urging me on. Some time later I tried to reason out my action. In my room was my money, papers, a few letters from my mother—my whole life, so to speak. Yet I’m certain that not for one moment did I think that I was running such risks for things like these.
Dense clouds of smoke shot with sparks were pouring out of the first-floor corridor, at the end of which was the door of my room.
I met Kessel coming down. I heard him shout:
“Where are you going? The stairs are in flames. The corridor’s burning!”
But I’d already left him far behind. I took off my jacket and wrapped it round my head. I don’t know how I managed to get to the door of my room. I only remember that when I touched the handle I burnt my fingers.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get the door open. The key turned in the lock as usual, but the door resisted.
It was then that I noticed a stout iron bolt, screwed into the door at one end and clamped to the wall at the other.
“So that’s it!” I said, “and my window looks on to the ravine of the Melna!”
I didn’t even start I understood. I knew what I wanted.
“So you thought, sire, that I should be still in my room! Didn’t you, now?”
To come and go was but the work of a minute. When I was at the bottom of the staircase a fearful crash was heard. The upper half of the whole corridor had just collapsed.
When, wild-eyed and scorched, I got back to the Grand Duchess, several groups had already collected in the park. A tall man was standing with her and Hagen. It was the Grand Duke.
“Monsieur Vignerte,” he cried rapturously, when he saw me. “Oh, what a weight you’ve taken off my mind! Have you come from far?”
“Yes, indeed, sir, very far!” I replied, and nearly fell.
“Hold him!” cried Aurora to Hagen.
The little red Hussar obeyed.
“Look out!” the Grand Duke broke in suddenly. “That’s exactly what I feared.”
Catching hold of his wife, he had suddenly jumped back a dozen yards or so. We all followed suit, stupefied.
An enormous flame, purple and gold, shot up into the glowing sky, followed by an appalling explosion. We saw the walls of the castle part asunder, totter and then collapse with a crash. A shower of fragments of every kind, wood and plaster, tiles and sparks fell on and around us. Beside us Captain Müller, who had gone forward, was hit by something. We saw him fall to the ground, with his head bleeding.
Professor Cyrus Beck’s laboratory had just blown up.
The firemen turned up almost immediately and set to work to localize the fire. In the Great Court behind we could hear the measured, muffled sound of the garrison troops coming up at the double.
By one o’clock the fire had been got under. At half-past they were bringing out the first corpses.
About two the first streaks of gold appeared in the sky and a serene dawn shone forth.
Just then a stretcher, borne by four soldiers, came past us. We recognized the body of the professor, terribly mangled.
The Grand Duke bent over it and took a long look. Then, throwing back the cloth over the horrid vision, he murmured:
“This was bound to happen sooner or later, with an old fool like that.”
Such was the funeral oration of Herr Professor Cyrus Beck, of Kiel University.
The Grand Duchess, Melusine and I went back to the left wing of the palace. It was about six o’clock. The day already promised to be very hot, for the summer sun rose red over the awful scene of desolation.
Melusine had joined us when the fire first began. She had spent the time helping the Grand Duchess to attend to the injured firemen and soldiers, who had been taken to the banqueting-hall.
Aurora hadn’t a word to say as she walked, and, busied with the burden of our own reflections, we respected her silence.
Suddenly she raised her head and smilingly showed me something in the blue sky, already turning white with heat.
A bird, coming from the east, was flying above our heads. It had a curious, jerky flight, now rising, now falling, the flight of birds with short wings, like the quail and partridge.
It disappeared to our left in the depths of the English garden by the Melna.
A second, then a third flew by and passed out of sight at the same spot. Then a score or more followed.
“The first missel-thrushes,” said Aurora. “They are going to the sorbs of the Melna.”
We had now reached her apartments. “Poor Melusine,” she said in a curious tone; “you’re absolutely done up. You must go and rest. I’m going to my bower to try and get a little recreation with those birds.”
“I want to come, too,” said Melusine.
“No, no!” replied the Grand Duchess. “Raoul Vignerte will come with me. I’ve something to say to him. You must go and rest. I order it. Just bring me down my gun and some cartridges. Lend yours to Vignerte. He’s left his own behind, under the ruins of the castle.”
The girl still insisted on going with us.
“Go!” said Aurora sternly.
Melusine left us. She seemed almost dead with fatigue and the strain.
To avoid disturbing the thrushes we took a winding path to the bower, where I had had my first interview with the Grand Duchess of Lautenburg. Every now and then we saw a thrush rise above the clumps of sorbs, take a good look round and then drop down, satisfied.
When we were in the leafy tunnel I thought we should have to make some kind of loophole, for the foliage was amazingly thick, and shut us in with its green, almost opaque wall.
The Grand Duchess didn’t seem to mind. She had not spoken a word as we walked. Her face wore an expression of firm resolution. I hadn’t broken the silence either. What could I have said? I’m sure our thoughts were the same at that tragic moment. What was the good of exchanging them?
Suddenly the set expression of her features relaxed a little. She began to talk in low tones. I was astounded by her extraordinary conversation, and the not less extraordinary notion of going there at such a moment to shoot the birds, whose habits she was describing.
Her loaded gun lay across her knees, and she had a curious smile, which made me think that the events of the night must have turned her brain. This is what she said:
“Missel-thrushes. You know them well. They’re like ordinary thrushes, only larger. They’re on you very much quicker. Very difficult to shoot, though they don’t look it. Treacherous creatures. You know they’re near, as we do now. But you can’t see them. You guess where they are and when to fire. I’m used to them myself. So when I say ‘Fire,’ and show you the direction, you must fire. Don’t worry about a target. You’ll go and look and there’ll be a thrush on the ground.”
She lowered her voice until it became a mere whisper, then, stretching out her arm, she pointed to something, an imperceptible rustling in the thick foliage.
“Fire!” she ordered, “fire, now, fire!”
“But I can’t see anything,” I said, disconcerted.
“Fool,” she murmured. “I will then.”
She raised her gun to her shoulder and fired.
A bang, then a terrible heartrending scream.
I trembled like the leaves which were still quivering under the shower of lead.
Leaning on her smoking gun, the Grand Duchess said to me with a wan smile, “Go and see....”
Obediently I staggered up and passed the green wall. Behind it, in a pool of blood fast soaking into the ground, Melusine von Graffenfried was writhing in her death agony, her face literally blown to bits by the charge which she had received almost at point-blank range.
“What a ghastly accident!” I cried in a horror-stricken voice.
The Grand Duchess had come out of her bower.
One of Melusine’s eyes was blown out, but the other was fixed on Aurora with a mad look of terror and torture.
Aurora gazed at her coldly, and murmured the words of Hamlet after he had killed Polonius:
“I took thee for thy better!”
With a horrible gasp Melusine expired.
For one moment the Grand Duchess stood motionless. The rigid lines in her face almost terrified me. Not a tremor shook her at the contemplation of the dead girl’s glassy eye.
“Let’s go back,” she said at length, “we must let them know about this fresh calamity.”
From my trembling fingers she took the light, engraved gun which had been Melusine’s, and laid it down beside the corpse.
She signed to me to stay behind, and went off quickly.
Left alone with the corpse, at first I couldn’t bring myself to look at it.
My God! where was now that lovely smooth skin, that perfect oval face, those melting eyes. Loathsome, bloody pulp of flesh, earth and hair.
Disgusting green insects were already buzzing round the horrid mass. I cut a leafy hazel branch and kept brushing them off, much as the old muffin men at home brush the flies off their trays with paper fans.
The Grand Duchess was soon back. Madame von Wendel, two or three waiting-women and Melusine’s maid came with her, weeping copiously. With her usual self-possession she gave the necessary orders. Melusine’s body was placed on a stretcher and carried to the palace.
Just as we reached it we saw the Grand Duke coming to meet the sad procession. He was on his way to visit the casualties of the night, when he was informed of the new blow that had fallen upon the Court of Lautenburg.
He rushed up visibly moved.
“Oh, madame,” he said, pressing Aurora’s hand, “what a dreadful misfortune.”
“Fate brings these catastrophes, sir,” replied the Grand Duchess, with wonderful self-possession.
“However did it happen?”
“How should I know, sir?” replied Aurora. “Truth to tell I know no more about it than you yourself know of the origin of tonight’s fire.”
The blow went home, but the Grand Duke did not lower his head.
“You are right, what does it matter how it happened since the dreadful results are only too self-evident? Let me associate myself with you in mourning the terrible loss you have suffered in Fräulein von Graffenfried’s death.”
“Terrible it is, sir,” replied Aurora, “and that is why I hasten to express my gratitude to you, since I have you to thank for the fact that it is not utterly irreparable. Perhaps you had some forebodings of what was to come when you decided to give me a second confidante in the person of Monsieur Vignerte?”
Frederick-Augustus bit his lips. But his reply was terrible.
“I know, Madame, that you value M. Vignerte’s services highly, and I am delighted. And if Fräulein von Graffenfried’s dreadful end moves me so much, in its effect on yourself, it is because I know that there are some things for which a woman is irreplaceable.”
Such an exchange of envenomed condolences seemed to me almost terrifying. Kessel, Colonel von Wendel, and the others who were standing round, had no idea of the full meaning of the tragedy. I was at once proud and dismayed to share such confidences. Memories of Professor Thierry shot through my mind. I had promised him never to mix myself up in the private affairs of the Lautenburg sovereigns!...
I did not know which to admire more, the portentous courtesy of the Grand Duke, or the icy dignity of the Grand Duchess. I thought for a moment that she would flinch and lose her self-possession under the infamous insinuation he had just made. She did nothing of the kind, and her reply was better than the attack that had provoked it:
“Irreplaceable you have rightly said, sir. And so it is with no idea of his taking Melusine’s place that I ask you to leave Monsieur Vignerte entirely at my disposal. On the contrary, I rely on his devotion to help me to preserve as vivid a recollection as possible of our dear dead friend and the events of this tragic night.”
She added:
“Owing to the fire M. Vignerte is actually without a roof. Will you kindly allow him to be my guest from this day forth?”
The Grand Duke bowed.
“It shall be done, madame, according to your wishes. May his society accord you a slight measure of that relief so necessary to your mental health after the heavy blows the will of the Most High has seen fit to inflict upon us.”
Thereupon he left us.
In the Grand Duchess’s boudoir, converted into a mortuary chapel, the coffin was smothered under a mass of Circassian roses and iris, between bowls from which the smoke of incense arose.
Aurora had wished to be alone with me to watch by the bier of her dead friend. Callers who diffidently asked for admittance received short shrift, I can assure you.
Dressed in a black Armenian tunic, she recited the beautiful prayers of her faith in low tones.
I had not closed my eyes for two days, and about midnight I sank into a chair worn out, and on the verge of collapse.
When I opened my eyes again the Grand Duchess was standing by me. In the light of the tall candles soft flickering shadows passed over her face. She put her hand on my forehead and murmured with a sweet, sad smile:
“You are tired out. Go to bed, dear friend, poor friend, whom I once doubted.”
Oh, human frailty! Sleep swept me off that night, a night I could have spent entirely alone with her amidst the suggestive scent of funeral wreaths in the very presence of death, from which anything can be expected. I slept in Melusine von Graffenfried’s room. The old, half-witted waiting-woman came grumbling to change the sheets.
It was on Tuesday, the 28th, that Melusine’s obsequies were celebrated. The Grand Duke, the Grand Duchess and Duke Joachim walked behind the hearse, its white pall hidden under the fragrant glories of Daghestan.
I was lost in the crowd of officers, palace officials and leaders of Lautenburg society. The Grand Duchess had ordered a squad of the 7th Hussars to render the honours. By the Grand Duke’s orders the great bell of the cathedral beat time to the procession with its heavy measured toll. A tall old man, with the ascetic face of a Moltke, in an ancient, shiny black frock coat, came first, with a haughty and sullen lieutenant in the blue uniform of the Brunswick Hussars. They were Richard and Albrecht von Graffenfried, the dead girl’s father and brother.
When the coffin entered the Temple of the Siegstrasse my very marrow seemed to freeze. It made me shiver to think that Melusine, whose voluptuous form seemed to cry aloud for the luxurious pomp of the Catholic ritual, should have belonged to the reformed faith.
I had never been in a Protestant temple before. They are awful places. Your very tears seem afraid to rise, lest they should freeze on your eyelids.
Pastor Silbermann delivered a sermon, his thin form, in its uncouth gown, reminiscent of the master of some masonic lodge emerging from a kind of revolving pulpit. For some reason I could not fathom he had selected from the Scriptures the incident of Jephthah’s daughter. Nothing could have been less appropriate to the frail departed than this reference to the sacrifice of that dismal, austere Jewess.
For a whole half-hour the pastor expounded, with the indefatigable enthusiasm of a mathematics’ master the three conditions for the equality of triangles.
When he came to the celebrated phrase, “Strike this bosom which for thee is unveiled,” my eyes sought the Grand Duchess. I saw she was weeping.
We went from the Temple to the station in cars. The coffin, with its fast-fading flowers, was put in a special carriage.
When I returned to the palace I met Lieutenant von Hagen in the Great Gallery, as deserted at five o’clock in the afternoon as if it had been midnight. He was pale and appeared as if he had been waiting for me.
“Monsieur,” he said, in a low voice, “yesterday morning I waited for you two hours at the La Meilleraie bridge.”
“I had entirely forgotten our little meeting,” I said. “I admit it frankly.”
“After this,” he muttered quietly, “may I hope there’ll be no more of your troublesome lapses of memory?” And so saying he tapped my cheek with the glove in his right hand.
I had some difficulty in keeping myself from retaliating with a good sound cuff. His elaborate pretence of self-possession saved me.
“Sir,” I said, “I shall be at your disposal at six o’clock tomorrow.”
“Let us arrange everything now, if you please. No seconds, no witnesses, of course. As you are the challenged party, what weapon will you choose?”
If I had been less excited than I was this question would have been a very awkward one. As it happened, I didn’t hesitate.
“This,” I replied, drawing the Grand Duchess’s revolver from my pocket.
I could see it was a shock, but he concealed it.
“It’s not exactly usual, is it?” he said. “But, after all, what does it matter? All right. Seven shots at discretion, immediately after the signal. What about the distance?”
“Ten paces,” I replied, utterly indifferent to what I was saying.
A sickly smile wreathed his mouth.
“A duel to the death then, monsieur. It shall be as you wish.”
He turned and left me.
I found the Grand Duchess in her room. I had not been there since the tragedy. She beckoned to me to sit down, but did not speak. Gradually darkness descended upon us. The lamp which burned before the ikon began to glow. Melusine’s guzla was still lying on the carpet. Our thoughts were the same. They dwelt on that other glorious instrument of delight, already a prey to the mysterious transformations of death, which also would never vibrate again.
When did Aurora sleep? Melusine alone could have known. We heard the birds awakening at the first coming of dawn. The shrill piping of finches and sparrows succeeded the plaintive note of the nightingale. I wonder whether I should hear the birds wake on the morrow.
I realized that the time had come. It was contrary to etiquette, but I said to Aurora:
“Forgive me for leaving you. I’m very tired.” There was a tinge of reproach in the look she gave me. I felt she was thinking that Melusine was never tired.
“If she only knew!” I said to myself. And for an instant I was almost tempted to tell her everything.
I went back to my room and left it a few moments later, taking care to go out through the Great Court, for fear lest she might see me from her window.
It was not yet five o’clock when I reached the La Meilleraie bridge. That hour’s respite seemed to me an eternity of bliss. Never had earth seemed so fair and life so dear as in those moments which I thought might very well be my last.
I knew that Hagen was one of the finest swordsmen in the garrison. He was also a crack pistol shot, while I—well, my education had been confined to firing off two, perhaps three, dozen cartridges with a revolver during my training periods as an officer of the reserve.
Leaning on the parapet I watched the Melna dashing over the boulders far below me. Little silvery trout darted up out of the foaming water, and reminded me of my trout-fishing days, ten years before, in the Ossau stream, between Laruns and Pont de Béon.
Where was this river going? To join the Aller, which meets the Weser, which flows into the North Sea, which joins the Channel, which is an arm of the Atlantic, which receives the waters of the Adour, into which the river of Pan, swollen by the Ossau stream, runs close by the blue hamlet of Peyrehorade. Little German trout, little French trout. Foolish, childish thoughts which carry the mind of a man facing death back through the course of his life, and bridge the gulf between distant epochs.
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Herr Professor. But it’s not yet quite six o’clock.”
Hagen! I hadn’t seen him come. I’d almost forgotten him, in fact.
We both bowed.
“I’ve brought with me,” he explained, “everything required for a meeting without seconds.”
He produced a fountain-pen and some paper.
“Revolvers being the weapon selected,” he said, “I’ve brought mine. We can draw lots if you like, but I think it’s hardly necessary. The model is the same. Now will you be good enough to sign this?”
He had taken the precaution of drawing up a statement, in my name and his, wherein the two adversaries testified in advance that everything had been quite fair and regular.
“In case there’s an accident, this will save the survivor a good deal of trouble,” he thought fit to explain.
Officialism could hardly go further. All the same I was curious to know how the signal was to be given. I couldn’t help asking him.
He smiled, a smile full of self-satisfaction.
“I’ve seen to that all right,” he replied.
With these words he opened a parcel containing an alarm-clock.
“I’ve set the alarm for ten minutes past six,” he said. “You can test it, if you like. When it goes off we will fire, changing places if we like. It’s all put down in the statement.”
I couldn’t say whether tragedy or absurdity was the more conspicuous feature of the proceedings.
Hagen paced out the distance.
“Eight, nine, ten. Herr Professor, you’re a little taller than I. Will you pace it out too, and if you like, we’ll take the mean.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “This is all right for me.”
He bowed and drew his revolver from his pocket.
“Seven minutes past,” he said. “We’d better take our places.”
I toed the line he had drawn at the start. We were now face to face.
The clock was placed on the parapet of the bridge, where we could both see its face. Its sharp ticking sounded above the distant roar of the river.
I looked at my opponent. His eyes, bashfully cast down like those of a girl, were fixed on my feet.
Nine minutes past six.
He is listening for the sound, while I am looking at the hand, I thought. Suppose the alarm went off too soon!
Suddenly I saw Hagen raise his head. His elegant self-possession had left him, and a look of unutterable terror was stamped on his features.
I turned round, regardless of the fact that this movement might have cost me my life. At that very moment the alarm went off, a loud buzz that went on and on.
The Grand Duchess Aurora was behind me. Then I understood why the officer hadn’t fired.
Aurora was now standing between us.
“Will one of you gentlemen kindly explain the meaning of this curious scene?” she said coldly.
There was no answer.
The document drawn up by Hagen was under the clock. She picked it up.
“I understand,” she said, when she had read it. “Revolvers! Monsieur Vignerte, you make very bad use of things you’re trusted with. Lieutenant von Hagen, my compliments to you. Your ingenuity is amazing.”
Her voice was ironical, but now became very hard:
“Gentlemen, if this is your method of proving that devotion with which you have never ceased to assail my ears, I may tell you that I have a very poor opinion of it. You’re a foreigner, Monsieur Vignerte, and cannot be expected, perhaps, to know our duelling regulations. But they are well known to you, lieutenant.”
Hagen hung his head.
“In particular, you know that an officer of the 7th Hussars may not fight without first obtaining his colonel’s permission. Only a year ago Lieutenant Techner was given thirty days’ close confinement in a fortress for breaking this rule. Have you forgotten?”
Hagen didn’t answer.
“Go back and put on your uniform, Herr von Hagen. Then go to the orderly-room and place yourself at the disposal of Major von Hougwitz until you receive official notification of the fifteen days’ confinement to which I reduce your punishment in view of your services. You can go, sir. Don’t forget your clock.”
Lieutenant von Hagen saluted his colonel, faced about and disappeared.